According to BrandsEye, #SONA2012 was mentioned over 40 000 times on Twitter.
Hashtracking shows that the last 1 500 tweets as at 6:51 AM on the 10th of February had a sizable reach, and this was partly because a 1/3 of the #SONA2012 mentions were retweets.

It is not surprising that this occasion was so big on Twitter. Top tweeps participated in the conversation!

Understandably, the event has become bigger than JZ’s speech. The list of invited guests…

…and the Red Carpet spectacle, also provided lots of content generation opportunities.

TweetLevel‘s analysis of top contributors to #SONA2012…

…supports CNN Africa Bureau Chief‘s observation that was supported by the editor of Stuff magazine.

Interestingly, some of the major media houses are starting to take issue with journos breaking news on Twitter first, or retweeting “unauthorised tweets”. And others, including ESPN and Sky News, have taken drastic steps to stop this practice by changing their social media policies that effectively gag their journos. Given what happened with #SONA2012 as showed by the Piechart above, I cannot help wondering if South African media houses will follow in the same foot steps. We shall be watching this space with great interest.
PLEASE NOTE: The analysis presented in this post is based on tweeting activity that happened until 8:00 AM on the 10th of February 2012.
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